The No 1 Lowtown Detective's Agency
by Corkerite
Summary: Kicked out of the guard for sticking her freckled nose where it wasn't wanted, Aveline has to bunk with Merrill in the Alienage. Together, they hang out a shingle as investigators. It's all small-time stuff until the day an elf with trouble written all over him - in lyrium - comes through their door.
1. Chapter 1

So I've got a funny story for you. Guard stops a Coterie ambush from killing a fellow guard. Guard Captain drums her out of the corps for it.

No, the punch line is that she ended up in the Alienage, living with a wide-eyed blood mage trying to put a cursed mirror together like a jigsaw puzzle. Go ahead, you can laugh now. But I still say it's better than bunking in Gamlen Amell's house, where he'll try to cop a feel and call it rent.

I've been a soldier and I've been a guard. Beating on things with a sword is what I know, and I'm not bad at figuring things out - too good, you might say, considering where it's gotten me. So to make ends meet, I hung out a shingle - the Number 1 Lowtown Detective Agency. Mostly, I track down losers who owe gambling debts, husbands or wives out running around, business partners skimming from the top - small, petty stuff. Even the murder or two we looked into were pedestrian - a crime of passion, a robbery gone wrong. Nobody in Lowtown had the resources to go big, I thought, except maybe Hawke. But Hawke's the exception.

Was I wrong.

I can usually spot an elf at twenty paces, but this one got in the door before I realized he wasn't a human. Almost as tall as me, almost as broad, in a long dark coat with a turned-up collar to play down the neck, and a two-handed sword strapped across his back. "Aveline Vallen?" he asked, big green eyes looking everywhere in the room except at me.

I rocked back in my chair. I don't go for elves in general, but I could see where exceptions could be made. (In theory, anyway. In practice... well, that's another story.) I couldn't place his accent, but that voice - low, smoky, a touch of gravel - that was something I noticed. "That's me," I said, cool.

A pitter-patter of bare feet skittered behind me, sliding a bit when she tried to corner the hallway too fast. Again. "And I'm Merrill," my partner said. "Welcome to the Number One Lowtown oh! you have vallaslin!"

I blinked. She was right - there were two little pale marks running down his chin. That's my partner all over - she notices things. Not always useful things, like a sparrow in the Viscount's keep, but sometimes she finds gold. Now I just have to find a way to keep her from blurting out whatever she sees to whoever's in the area.

He looked her over for a moment, then smiled. "Not exactly," he said, and I swear that voice dropped another half-octave. "I didn't expect to see a Dalish elf here."

"Oh, it's a long story," Merrill waved it off. I could hear the nerves in her voice; looked like he could, too, but figured a different reason.

"Maybe you could tell me about it sometime," he offered, with a smouldering look that even got through my partner's usual obliviousness and kindled a fire in her cheeks. "Once my sister is safe."

"What's the story?" I rapped. I didn't like the approach he was taking to enlisting our services.

He looked at me, all injured innocence. I wasn't buying it. "My sister's been... in the company of a smuggler. Hayder," he supplied the name. "I don't think he means to do well by her."

"And?" I asked, unimpressed. "Did he break both her legs so she can't walk away?"

"If I had _seen_ her recently, maybe I would know," he shot back. "There are many ways a human man can make it difficult for an elven woman to leave him."

I grimaced. That wasn't exactly a lie, even if I think the old 'helpless elven maiden' thing gets played when a girl makes a mistake she wishes she hadn't. "So is that meat cleaver you're carrying for show? You look like a capable sort."

He just sighed and turned those puppy eyes on my partner. "You explain to her," he said.

"Aveline, he won't be listened to. And if an elvhen man attacks a human in this city..." She let it trail off.

_If the guard were run right, it shouldn't bloody matter_, I wanted to say. But I had good cause myself to know that wasn't the case.

"Have a seat," I said, pointing to the rickety chair on the other side of my desk that was also the dinner table, "and tell us about this sister."

* * *

Fenris, the client, led us to where Hayder's ship was berthed. It was a smuggler's special - one of those warehouses that opens right onto the water. You pay your bribes to the harbormaster, you pull inside, and nobody sees what you offload. Yet another fine public service of Kirkwall that the Guard ought to be taking a closer look at. Jeven won't, though, not in an Age.

"I'm here to see Hayder," Fenris growled at the watchman at the door. I didn't expect that to work - and when it did, I got suspicious. It didn't quite add with the 'poor oppressed elf can't confront the big bad human' story (and the entirely satisfactory retainer) that got us here. But it wasn't impossible, and in fact I could already hear a man ranting about some 'little bitch,' so we followed him in, me in my old Ferelden officer's togs and Merrill...

Now, my partner's... on the odd side. She's Dalish, which means she's got no idea what a city's really like. She's been trying to learn, in between afternoons of black magic and demonology, but she's got some bad sources. Like Varric Tethras.

Don't get me wrong. I wish him every bit of success, mostly because it'll mean good news for Hawke, and I still owe that family. But he writes these _books_, and then Merrill reads them, and she comes on a job with this weird grey hat with a little brim she keeps tugging down so she can't see. It reminds me a little of those damn hurlocks with their crossbows, back north of Lothering. So I can only see half of one eye when she nods at me as we cross the threshold. She's got no idea when we're being set up for a double-cross, but she can tell when I lock my jaw and knows that means trouble's coming. She'd kill at Wicked Grace if she could remember the scoring.

Things happened quickly after that. A big ugly Marcher who was apparently Hayder saw us coming and didn't like our looks. He didn't say much before setting his men on us, but I thought I heard something about a 'knife-eared traitor' in there, and I doubted he meant Merrill. I filed that away for later, because things were getting a busy right now. Hayder unlimbered a sword as long as Merrill and shouted something about killing us.

...and then he was crying for his mother, sword falling, forgotten, to the floor. For all that my partner's a cheerful, pleasant sort, she's got this knack for pulling people's nightmares out of the back of their brains and putting them front and center. And then there's the lightning striking from the sky, leaving the room smelling like roasted pig as men fry. It seems less honest than a sword-blow, but I can't argue with the results.

We didn't have to get into the blood magic, thank the Maker. I've seen her do that once, and once was enough.

The client went right for Hayder - glowing. At first I thought it was a new spell of Merrill's, but a quick glance confirmed she was still conjuring lightning. Fenris was doing that all on his own, lit up with an eldritch pattern of lines that showed right through his long coat.

I've had clients with trouble written all over them before, but never _literally._

I couldn't stay to watch the light show - too many smugglers to kill. If they can make it out of Merrill's killbox, I have to put them down before they can get to her. It's not my favorite part of the job, but it's the part that makes it pay. Not everyone can stare deadly trouble in the eye and then gut it.

It was over pretty fast - it usually is, when we're out of sight somewhere Merrill can really unload. "Stone him!" I barked.

She hesitated. Of course she did - he was the client. She trusts me, but she's got her own brain and it asks a lot of questions. Too many questions, sometimes, like now. I hefted my shield, not sure what was coming next.

Not much, as it happened. She got her petrification spell off and it - didn't work. "That's quite odd," I heard her pronounce, because that one just about _always_ works. There was a golem once - another story. Certainly, it should have worked on some elven fellow, even if he did glow blue. But instead the stones reached up, then slipped and slithered back down again, following those blue-white markings down to the ground. And I noticed - he wasn't the least bit singed, despite having run straight into a lightning storm to kill Hayder.

"Is there a reason you're trying to... what _are_ you trying to do?" he asked.

"Get the whole story," I said.

"Aveline, we should look for his sister. That _is_ why we're here," Merrill felt compelled to remind me.

I didn't take my eyes off him, but asked her, "You don't have any, I don't know, unanswered questions after all that?"

"They knew his sister; they knew him. He brought us here, so they got upset. We had a fight. Am I missing something again?"

When she put it that way... But my gut insisted there was more to the story than we'd gotten. "And the blue-glowing thing?"

"You brought an apostate," he noted dryly, "who threw around lightning, and you're asking me about that? We should search the premises and go, before someone comes to see what all the thunder and screaming was about."

"To loot the bodies, probably." Because it's not like anybody in Kirkwall would put their own arses on the line to _help out_. I put up my sword. "Fine. We'll search."

No woman. And the client seemed relatively unconcerned about that. Score another one for my gut. "You think your sister is inside that book?" I asked, as he leafed through some sort of log.

"I think Hayder's ship's log is my best bet at finding out where she is, now that Hayder's dead," he replied, unperturbed.

"I think some people are coming," Merrill reported from the door.

Fenris slipped the logbook under his arm. "Thank you for your assistance, ladies. I believe that concludes our business."

"Why do I have the feeling," I asked, my eyes narrowing, "that you expected this to end in slaughter?"

"I couldn't say." Wryly amused, damn his eyes. Which probably meant he could say exactly. He raised his voice slightly and called, "You still owe me a story," toward the door and Merrill, then he suddenly flashed blue, jumped up several crates and disappeared out a second-story window.

"Aveline," Merrill called again. "We should _really_ go. I think it might be the guard."

I cursed, and we ran for it.


	2. Chapter 2

I was in a foul mood the next day. I had a suspicion I'd been used as a cut-rate assassin, and I didn't like it one bit. If I wanted to kill for hire, I would have joined the Coterie. So when we went out the next day to buy bread and sundries - because the client _had_ paid, well and up front - and Merrill ventured a hesitant "Aveline?", I just pretended not to hear her. I didn't sodding well care about kittens or interestingly-shaped clouds or whatever fool thing she wanted to talk about. I just wanted to stew.

We got the bread, and she tried again. "Aveline?"

"Greengrocer next," I grunted.

"Ooo. Do you think she'll have any squash? Wait - focus, Merrill," she scolded herself, and I sighed. Whatever this was, she wasn't going to let it go. "I need to tell you something."

"What?" I asked, irritated.

'Irritated' on me looks a lot like 'about to pound someone,' so Merrill shrank back. "Nothing," she muttered. She looks like a kicked puppy when she does that, and feeling guilty just made me more cross. Scowling, I stomped my way to the greengrocer. And then to the butcher, all in blessed silence. I had just about stomped my bad mood out, and we were headed back to the Alienage, when I heard again: "Aveline?"

I _almost_ yelled, but the shot of guilt from before reminded me not to. "Yes, Merrill?" I replied, straining with the effort of not snapping.

"I don't mean to be a bother," she ventured, "but you _did_ say I should tell you when I noticed certain things?" _Oh sod._ I nodded numbly - there were only so many things I'd made sure she learned to report, and none of them were particularly good. "A dwarven man has been following us since we left the Alienage. I thought maybe he was just shopping, too, but he hasn't bought anything."

I cursed my temper six different ways. "I'll apologize later," I said, as much for myself as for her. "Right now, tell me where the dwarf is."

"To my right, over at the cheese shop," she replied instantly, without looking or pointing. That had been easier to teach her than I'd worried it would be - apparently, Dalish hunters do a lot of tiny, coded movements to communicate in ways that won't startle prey. "Last I saw, he was the only dwarf there."

We began to walk on, and I stole a look at the cheese shop. Sort of weedy for a dwarf, a little greasy-looking, pale. Blond, moustache, short beard. I didn't recognize him.

He was pretty bad at his job, and I resolved to apologize twice to Merrill. If I hadn't been so busy fuming, I'd have seen him half an hour ago. But I was, so I didn't - but she did. And then she apparently came up with a plan to deal with him.

He slouching down a narrow Lowtown alley behind us when Merrill made a small gesture with her hands; I heard a cry of pain and a thump. Trip-and-fall can happen so easily in a city carved from stone, when you're a geomancer.

That was my cue. Merrill couldn't lie her way past the world's most gullible Chantry sister, much less some Carta punk. "Hey buddy," I called, turning and striding back toward him. "You okay?"

"Uh, uh yeah," he stammered, hurrying to pick himself up. "Just tripped. I'm fine."

"Are you sure?" I asked as I got closer.

"Yeah, sure, sure," he nodded. "Thanks for -"

I straight-armed him back into the wall. "I wouldn't be so sure," I smiled. "I had a lousy day yesterday, and today some seedy-looking Carta lackey's stalking me around the bazaar. And you know what would make me feel better?" I cocked a fist back.

"I'm not Carta!" he yelped, doing his best to cower while I held him up with my other hand. "I'm a merchant, an entrepeneur!"

"Oh. That fits," Merrill nodded, as if this should be obvious. Maybe to her, it was. "But why were you following us?"

"My name's Javaris. Javaris Tintop," he said, words tripping over each other in his haste to convince me not to punch him. "Tintop Investments and Technologies. Best non-magical equipment from around the world. I've got a line on something, something big, but to seal the deal, I've got to bring you to the Horned Man."

"I'd like to see you try."

"It's not like that!" He was literally sweating, and I had to resist the urge to let go of him to wipe my hand off. "You, you run some sort of... lost and found business, right? Yeah. He's looking for something. Maybe if you find it for him, he'll be grateful. And since I'll be the one who brought you into it, he'll be grateful to me!"

"You want me," I said, eyes narrowing, "to do some job, for free, in the hope that some guy with bad taste in helmets decides to pay me for it?"

"No no no... I mean, yes, that's what I thought at first, but then I thought - let's go and see him! Together! Yeah?" None of this sounded particularly appealing, and I'm sure it showed in my scowl. He hastily added, "This thing, that he's looking for? Worth your weight in gold." He paused, licking his lips. "Okay, maybe not your weight. Her weight, definitely," he said, eyes flicking toward Merrill.

My financial interests warred with my good sense enough that I was fool enough to ask, "What _is_ it?"

"Some sort of... religious relic, I think," Tintop said. "He hasn't exactly been forthcoming, but I think if I can show that I've got the right people for the job..."

Rumors about the Sacred Ashes of Andraste had been swirling ever since the Blight. That's the first thing I thought of that might be worth so much money. I'm not scared of the Void, and supposedly the Maker's written us all off as ungrateful children. On the other hand, there's very real physical consequences for working against the Chantry in _this_ world.

If you get caught at it.

"What do you think?" I asked Merrill.

She stepped closer, at a right angle to me so I could see her face without looking too far away from Tintop. "I don't like him very much," she said with a frown. "He thinks things will be as he wants them to be, because he wants them." That seemed a bit rich coming from someone who was sure that blood magic was all right if she was the one doing it, but I let it go. We don't argue in front of clients. "But it couldn't hurt to at least meet this Horned Man."

I gave her a sideways glance; her eyes were half-closed, and I suspected she was thinking of all the shady antiquarians she'd like to shower gold on in exchange for another moldy, worm-eaten tome of Tevinter lore, in the hopes that it might contain some scrap of information she could use to restore the eluvian. Because, at the end of the day, it's always about the eluvian with Merrill. It's almost comforting, to know exactly what her price is.

But it's damn unnerving to wonder what unseen creatures might be offering to pay it.

"All right," I nodded, and removed my hand from Tintop's shoulder. He huffed and brushed himself off. "We'll go with you. After we get our groceries home."

"You're, where? By that big painted tree, right? All right. I got a few things to get myself, and I'll meet you there," Tintop nodded.

Funny how it's the little things that can make a difference. If we hadn't been to the market, we wouldn't have needed to go into the Alienage. And if we hadn't gone back into the Alienage, we wouldn't have run into a familiar long coat with a white-haired, tattooed face.

"Ah, ladies," Fenris turned and smiled as we came up to the apartment... but it didn't reach his eyes. "I was hoping to find you at home."

"Good morning," Merrill started, but I cut her off. "We're not 'at home.' We're stopping in and headed back out. And if you need more killing done, go hire a mercenary."

"Aveline." Merrill sounded stern, and I cursed inwardly. This was payback for ignoring her earlier, I knew it. "Please excuse her, she's had a grumpy morning," she _apologized_ to Fenris. She handed me her basket of bread and leafy stuff and looked meaningfully toward the door.

My mouth tightened, but I took it and went in. I couldn't just dump it on the table and storm back out - half of it would be nibbled by the time we got back. I tell myself it's mice because I hate rats. Merrill's got some big pottery jars with tight-fitting lids and some sort of magic spell on them, to boot, and I had to put everything into those. It didn't take too long, but I had to be careful with the lids, especially because I was in a mood to slam them around.

By the time I got back out - well. He was standing way too close to her to fit the Blessed Andraste between them, and she was... Well, Merrill's only slightly better dealing with masculine interest than I am. The nervous laugh and her face the color of a sunset said she wasn't exactly at ease with the situation - but she hadn't taken any steps back, either.

"So!" I said loudly, and I swear the bastard made a point of ignoring me for just a heartbeat to say something else, quiet-like, to her, before looking up. "We've got somewhere to be directly, so if you've got actual _paying business_, spill it."

"I do have a bit of business which might be much to your liking," he said, pleasant as you please, but his eyes had gone hard. At least we understood each other. "I'm looking for a ship."

"You think 'your sister' is on it?" I asked skeptically. "Wait, let me guess - you want us to -"

"Find me the ship," he interrupted. "Hayder had dealings with it; it won't be on any Kirkwall dockmaster's registries. That's why I need the help. You find it, tell me where it is, and I'll take it from there."

So, some smuggler's vessel. Or maybe a slaver ship. Hard to argue with pointing him at one of those. "I think we can talk particulars," I nodded, and Merrill beamed. "When you need it by, how much you're -"

"Ahhh!" The frightened squawk came from the vhenadahl. We all turned to look at Javaris Tintop, clutching his chest. "You!"

"I?" Fenris asked, but I noticed him shift his weight into a stance that could move fast.

"You... you won't have it!" Tintop insisted, and jabbed a sausage finger at me. "_I've_ hired them, and we're going to the Horned Man right now, and -"

"The Horned Man? In Kirkwall?" Fenris asked sharply. "Venhedis!" Whatever that meant, his weird tattoos flashed and he was off, streaking across the Alienage courtyard and up the stairs to Lowtown.

I _really_ don't like it when I'm the last one in the room to know what's going on.


	3. Chapter 3

All I could bully out of the greasy dwarf was that he'd had some trouble with Fenris, which was already obvious. He did have some pretty choice words on what he thought of the elf, with 'crazy,' 'murderous,' and 'vicious' topping the list. Merrill didn't seem to like that assessment of her new boyfriend. "And why do you say all that?" she asked, as we made our way back towards the docks. (Why is it always the docks?)

"Because he is," Tintop shrugged.

"Under what circumstances did you observe those characteristics?" I asked, partly because they'd be circling each other forever if I didn't, and partly because I wanted to know, too.

"He's just a maniac," Tintop said, trying for 'nonchalant' and just hitting 'evasive.' "How should I know why?"

"I didn't ask _why_," I said through gritted teeth. "I _asked_ -"

"Oh look, here's the place." Mopping sweat from his brow, the dwarf gestured to a gate hanging half-open.

I looked at him, then looked at the gate again. The area beyond it was probably some sort of ancient slave holding pen; this was the only way I knew to get in and out. By day, streetwalkers took it over, propositioning sailors just in off the sea. Right across from the harbormaster, too. At night, when the sea fog rolled in and you could smell the ash and hot metal smells wafting up from Darktown, it was dark and dangerous. Rumor was there was an entrance to Darktown in there, and Coterie or slavers or even maleficar used it as a way to get in and out of the city. I hefted my shield and told Tintop, "You go first."

"Whu, humph! What am I paying you for, then?" he demanded indignantly.

"You're paying me?" I asked.

"A share of profits, like we agreed!"

"So you agree that I have not yet been paid. In you go." I nudged him forward with my shield. If he was leading us into some kind of trap, he could bloody well go first.

Sputtering, he went in hesitantly. "Uh... hello? Arishok? Are you there?" He looked around at the shadows, searching for someone in the darkness. "It's me, Javaris Tintop, Tintop Investments and -"

"I know who you are." The voice, almost impossibly deep, came from above - overseer's platform, if I was right about what this place used to be. There was a sharp _click_ and suddenly, light flared, illuminating a _literal_ horned man. A qunari.

On the way to Ostagar, we marched through the village of Lothering. They had a qunari there, in a cage. The locals said a family had found him, unconscious and bloody, and nursed him back from the brink of death. When he came to, he repaid them all by killing them with his bare hands. Then he waited, docile as a sheep, for the bann's men to arrest him. Nobody knew what to make of it, and nobody wanted to open the cage to hang him, just in case he wasn't going to be accommodating anymore. He'd been huge, a genuine giant, near to seven feet tall.

The Horned Man made that prisoner look small.

"I really haven't any idea about this at _all_," Merrill breathed beside me.

The enormous figure, his face as craggy as the cliffs of Kirkwall, stalked to the edge of the platform above. The lantern up there was being held by another qunari, one of a slightly more sensible, smaller size. I could make out at least three more shadows hulking up there. "I do_not_ know who _you_ are," he said, head swiveling toward Merrill and me. "Although I can guess your motives. Do you, too, come to grovel for our secrets? Or is it the merely the base mercenary nature that moves you?"

"I don't care to be spoken to that way," I said, because I didn't. And blast if he wasn't near to eight feet tall with horns that were a yard if they were an inch, but he was a qunari and he was in _my_ city and I wasn't having any of it.

"And I do not care to hear you speak, yet it seems necessary." Oh, he was a real charmer, all right. "We are attempting to conclude our business here without _immersing_ ourselves in this cesspit of wasted potential and chaos, but you _bas_ continue to force your presence upon us. What do you know of our interest in Kirkwall?"

"We want to help you find your artifact-thing, the ah, the tome." Javaris's nasal tone started to really grate, especially when it said things he hadn't told me. "You know, to prove ourselves, ah, worthy of perhaps negotiating for the -"

"You know we seek the Tome of Koslun?" he rumbled.

"I suppose we do now, yes," Merrill admitted.

"Hrm." The giant turned away, stepping back to settle himself impressively on some stool or seat hidden up in the gloom. "Light the incense, if we are to speak of the sacred text," he called to one of his men.

"I don't need to know much to do my job," I put in. "And right now, I'm thinking my job is to get you out of this city before anything unfortunate happens. To us, or to you. If finding a book is what it takes, I'm on it."

"Approach," he beckoned us like a king. Javaris scurried forth like an eager sycophant. Merrill didn't look at me, but I knew she would follow my cue.

I didn't like it. I didn't like the look of these oxmen, apparently hiding in Darktown and emerging here at the docks at night. I didn't like that they might have driven the Coterie off of their own turf - that meant they were dangerous. I _really_ didn't like that there were at least five of them, possibly with reserves I couldn't see.

But on the other hand, if they had any sort of ranged weapons at all, we'd do much better if we were close, where I could fight back. I trusted that Merrill would be able to slip clear fast if things went bad - those big elven eyes are good for seeing in the dark. She'd find a dark corner and conjure something unspeakable.

So we approached.

"Many years ago," Arishok, motionless upon his stool, said, "a man named Koslun lived a life of great ease. Until one day, his vision cleared and he saw the suffering of the poor around him. And he asked, Why should this be?"

"It's a good question," I admitted. "The Chantry certainly hasn't found an answer."

"It is the _only_ question," Arishok intoned, with a dark glance at me. "And his answer was the Qun, the way, the path that guides the qunari."

"My people, the elvhen, speak of many _vir_, many ways to travel the path of life," Merrill put in.

"Your people are weak and foolish, running from inescapable forces they would do better to accept," Arishok replied. Without venom, but utterly without doubt. Merrill straightened, offended. "There is one way, the Qun. And the Qun was first written by Koslun in this book that we seek."

He stood to pace. "It was captured by the _bas_ many years ago, not long after we first conquered this city."

"First conquered?" Javaris asked, confused. "You did it twice?"

"We will do it again," the Horned Man said, with doom in his voice. _Not if I have anything to say about it,_ I thought. "But its return recently negotiated - until a _bas_ even more feckless than the lot of you _stole_ it. We have tracked it to this city, to these docks." He shook his great head. "Count yourselves lucky that it is my task only to retrieve it, and not to burn this cesspit in which it has lain defiled."

To the docks. To a ship at the docks? Hadn't I been asked recently about a job with a ship? "You're looking for a ship, too?" I asked, feeling unaccountably confused.

Merrill had a hand to her brow. "Aveline, it's not... it's not right," she said, swaying slightly.

"Ah," the Horned Man nodded, as Javaris Tintop fell over in a heap. I reached for my sword, but my fingers wouldn't quite close around the grip. "Those without the mental discipline imparted by the Qun often find the scent of the _saar-qamek_ incense overpowering. If your fellow_bas_ do not kill you while you lie helpless, you will find yourselves well come the dawn."

"We were just trying to help," Merrill protested, sinking to the ground. I fought it, overbalanced and came crashing down on one knee.

"I neither requested nor required aid, especially not from _bas_." The Horned Man turned and signalled his warriors. "Let us find this _Siren's Call_," was the last thing I heard, before I blacked out.


	4. Chapter 4

I came to with the sharp smell of elfroot and rashvine under my nose. "Hungh?" I asked intelligently, lurching up into a sitting position with a clatter. My head swam and my stomach did a slow roll, but it was still full dark. Long before dawn.

"Easy," Merrill said beside me, one hand steady on my arm. "They gave us some nasty sort of soporific."

"Sopor- what?"

"Puts you to sleep," the elf said. Satisfied that I was all right, she shuffled over to Tintop's prone form and put a small ceramic bowl full of mashed plant parts under his big dwarven nose.

"And you resisted it?" I asked, a little more incredulously than was appropriate, given the facts of the matter.

"Not as such," Merrill said, unruffled. "But sending a mage into the Beyond isn't exactly the best way to keep them down. It took me some doing - that smoke wasn't magic, so I couldn't just... well, anyway... That's why I say you need to bash a maleficar on the head if you want to make sure he's unconscious," she finished. "That's not sleep, that's blunt trauma."

Tintop came to with even less grace than I had, arms pinwheeling and eyes staring. "Heyza huzza - oh!" The last bit came out as a squeak as he found my blade leveled unsteadily at his throat.

"Talk," I croaked.

"Talk? Whaddya mean, talk? Talk about what, I don't understand what you -"

I drew one foot back for a kick. I was angry that he'd lied to us, angry we'd been set up, drugged, and left to get our throats slit, and now the little bastard was trying to pretend he didn't know what I wanted him to say?

Then that hand was back on my arm. "Aveline," Merrill said. She said it a little strange, with an elven accent to it, that she does when she thinks I should think twice about what I'm doing.

We hadn't known each other long when I was drummed out of the Guard, but we _had_ known each other. She's never seen me at my best - my best and my worst were at Ostagar, that awful night of fire and rain and blood - but she's seen me better.

I'm never sure if I want to thank her or smack her.

It's nothing to her. She's a lunatic, pinning her dreams on shattered fragments of cursed glass. She lives in eternal hope, ever optimistic that tomorrow, tomorrow will be the day she figures it out, unlocks the ancient secrets, and will be welcomed back to her home with rejoicing.

So she tries to keep that hope alive in me, too. That it'll be better one day, that I won't be a Fereldan thug playing at peacekeeper, that I won't forget that the wretched people of this city, the ones the Horned Man wrote off as trash, are worth fighting for.

But it's easier to forget. It hurts less. Means I didn't fail them, like I failed my men at Ostagar, or my husband outside of Lothering. If they're none of them worth it, it doesn't matter. Means I don't matter either, but that's a small price to pay to stop the pain, isn't it?

All the same, I put my foot back down.

"He mentioned secrets you were after," I made myself say, almost calmly. "What's your angle in this, Tintop?"

"The- the gaatlok!" he stammered. "Oxman explosive powder. Like fireballs but it's not magic! I wanted to trade for the formula, or even a sample, but they, they wouldn't speak to me. But if I had their book, then, then they'd have to -"

Speak of the Archdemon and see its tail, as they say.

Tintop was interrupted by a terrific roar. Merrill and I bolted out into the main thoroughfare just in time to see a cloud of red-orange light bloom over the tops of the warehouses. Tintop shrieked, "That's it! The gaatlok! Blast and blast, they must've blown the lot of it!" behind us as we pelted down to the corner to get a better look.

A ship - a smuggler's rig if ever I saw one, fast and low on the water - billowed flames. Her moorings had been slipped, or cut, or burned, and she was drifting out into the harbor. The entire deck was a field of fire, silhouetting the massive bulk of the qunari on the quay.

There were many more than five of them.

I couldn't see a single thing for us to do. Even with Merrill's spells, there were simply too many and - then what? I couldn't imagine any survivors on that drifting, burning wreck. From what I understood, the damage was done. They had their book and they'd leave. Nothing more to it. Case closed. "Let's get out of here," I said to Merrill, and she nodded, wide-eyed. We turned and retreated up the steps to Lowtown.

And if I thought, amidst all that hellish light, that I caught a glimpse of something cool and blue as spring water, well - what would be the point in mentioning it?

We slowed to a walk as soon as we were out of sight of the qunari. Javaris Tintop was nowhere to be seen, and good riddance. Thinking of the dwarf, his ass and my foot, I found myself asking, "Why'd you stop me?"

"What?" Merrill sounded confused. "You said we should go. Do you think we should go back and -"

"No, no," I shook my head. "I meant with Tintop. And half a dozen others, come to think of it."

Merrill was quiet for a minute, then said, "That's not who you are."

"It's not who I _was_," I grunted. "Why's it your business to police the guardsman, anyway?"

"We're partners," she said immediately, as if that explained it. Maybe it would, if it came from another guard, or a soldier.

"So your interest in my..." I groped for a word. "My _morals_ comes from Varric's lousy guard stories?"

She was quiet again, and giving me the side-eye. Not the wounded wide-eyed look, though. "No," she said at length. "They come from _our_stories. A Dalish story. About Avalin."

I stared at her, and she watched the street, and she slowly recited for me a tale I'd grown up knowing - but from the other side. This wasn't Ser Aveline of Orlais; this was Avalin of the Dalish clans. Of course, that was a part of Ser Aveline's tale - she'd been abandoned and taken in by the Dalish - everyone knew that. But I'd never thought about what it _meant_, as Merrill described how a closed helm was made for Avalin - not to hide her sex, but to conceal her vallaslin, so she could enter the ill-fated tournament.

"So," Merrill concluded awkwardly, after Avalin's clan had departed in tears, grieving the loss of their daughter, "it's not the first time someone by your name has been cast out by the shemlen who, by rights, should have cared for her, and ended up among the People. And I... just want the story to have a better ending this time."

"I'm not that Aveline," I said stiffly. Maker knew I proved it often enough to my father.

"Oh, I know that," Merrill said, as if I'd informed her that the night sky above was black. "And it wouldn't matter if your name were Sussa or Emma, I suppose. But, well. It makes it all stick out more. And makes me think," she said, shrewdly, "that sometimes more armor isn't the answer to all your problems."

That sounded uncomfortably like a metaphor, so I decided to take it literally. "Hey, if _I'm_ taking the lumps, I think that _I_ ought to -"

"Aveline." Merrill cut me off, voice suddenly tense. "Our door's open."

I looked. By the light of the candles the elves left burning around their tree (because surely _that_ wouldn't ever cause a problem), I could see that she was right - a thin band of shadow showed our front door open a crack.

And dark stains marked the ground leading up to it.

The night wasn't over yet.


	5. Chapter 5

We burst through the door with practiced skill: me charging ahead, shield raised, Merrill hanging back with blue eldritch light flickering around her fingers. Head up, survey the scene and assess threat -

One woman, wounded and bent with pain, half-collapsed on the floor by the desk. On the desk, a really, really large book. _Three guesses which one._

"Tell me I got the right house," the woman gritted. "And that you've got some salve."

"And who the blazes are you?" I demanded.

"Captain Isabela, _Siren's Call_," she said, grimacing as she half-rolled over. _The ship the qunari had mentioned. Naturally._ Merrill kept an eye on her as I moved through our few rooms, making sure she was the only surprise. "Hayder's elf sent me here."

That brought me up short, not three feet behind her. "Hayder's - ?"

"Elf," said a too-familiar gravelly voice. Coming out of the darkness behind Merrill, Fenris got one glimmering blue arm around her; the other angled a crossbow at my chest. At this range, the bolt would go through armor like butter. I knew it, and so did he.

"You bastard," the captain spat from the floor. "It's my life to get that book to Castillion!"

"And I need it to rid myself of the attentions of a persistent and powerful Tevinter magister. Apologies, captain."

"Those qunari may attack the city if they don't get this back!" I insisted. "There's a company of them at least. It'll be a slaughter!"

"Kirkwall has a Guard, the Templar Order, and the combined might of the Gallows mages to defend itself. If you run now, you can give them enough warning. But the book is mine - the captain is in no condition to argue the point, I am immune to her magic, and I can loose this bolt before you can cross the distance between us."

"And which hand," I asked, "are you going to pick the book up with?" The question made him pause. Perhaps his initial plan hadn't involved grabbing Merrill. But that was when my partner stamped on his bare elven foot, hard.

It was the pure surprise of the thing that did it. I've no doubt that Fenris had taken much worse blows. But he wasn't _expecting_ that one, and the point of his crossbow dipped, just slightly. And that was all the time I needed to get my shield, Wesley's old templar issue, up.

Now we were in business.

Fenris shoved Merrill away from him, making a lunge for the tome. I came flying over the desk, crashed into him, sent us both tumbling to the floor. "It's not for you, either!" Merrill said sharply, apparently to Isabela, and then a great wall of ice swept over the desk, freezing the book inside it.

I got a knee onto Fenris's wrist, the hand holding the crossbow - then cursed as his other hand came _through_ my shield toward my face. "That's not so great a hindrance as you'd think," he snarled.

I slammed my shield forward, and was relieved when his head didn't pop through it. There was a satisfying _thock_, however. I rolled off the dazed elf, claimed the crossbow _and_ did a quick search for other weapons.

Coming to my feet, I dropped my findings on the desk and looked at the two on the floor. "All right," I said. "This is what we're going to do. I'm going to take this thing back to the qunari. And then, if the details of your stories merit it, we'll help you out with your various problems. For free. In exchange for your continued cooperation this evening."

"Hello? Bleeding out here," Captain Isabela said weakly.

"No deal." Fenris rolled to his feet, hands flexing and tattoos glowing. "I can't take Danarius. Neither can you. I need that book."

"Don't be an idiot," I said, behind my shield. "I'm armed, you're not."

"So it shouldn't be difficult for you to stop me," he said. With that damned smirk. Because the sodding bastard had me figured for someone who wouldn't cut down an unarmed man.

"Stop right there!" I raised my blade, but it was a bluff - and he knew it. I could batter him around with my shield, but the longer this tome was missing, the greater the chances the qunari would get violent - and never mind the dying woman on the floor...

"She said stop." Merrill, crossbow rock-steady in her slender hands.

"You won't shoot me," he said, with far too much confidence.

"I won't?" she asked. "You played me, serah. With your smiles and your wide eyes, you made me think I was special - that there could have _been_ something, something precious, between us."

In a night which had so far included a secret qunari army, instant fireball powder, knockout gas, and a disembodied hand trying to throttle me through my shield, this was the kicker, the strangest thing. It was Merrill talking all right, but that didn't sound like my partner at all. For half a moment, my blood chilled as I thought about spirits and demons and mages, but then I realized what it did sound like -

_Hard in Hightown._

"We never even had that dinner." Fenris tried logic. I could have told him not to bother.

"I knew it, ever since the night on the docks," Merrill went on. "You knew me as an apostate then, and you never looked at me the same way again. I didn't want to believe it - silly little fool," she spat, just like one of Varric's fictional Coterie girls. "But it's all too clear now," and Maker save me, she put a finger on the trigger, "and there's just one end to it."

"Merrill?"

"Yes, Aveline?"

"I'd rather not have to explain a dead elf to the hahren."

"But he's going to cause you trouble, Aveline," she said earnestly. "If I let him go, he'll be that rotten man at the tournament who couldn't follow the rules." She lifted the crossbow a bit higher, and I saw Fenris swallow. "Besides, when I'm done, there won't be a body."

Mages are scary.

"I'll stay here," Fenris volunteered hoarsely. "Tend to the captain. I have a healing potion in my pouch."

Merrill gestured with one hand; the ice disappeared. I scooped up the tome. "What about your reservations?"

"Whether or not you can stop Danarius matters little if she kills me tonight."

"Good point!" I said, more cheerfully than I felt. I still didn't want to turn my back on this crowd. "Merrill..."

"Go, Aveline. Take it and go quickly, before anything bad happens."

So I did. I found the qunari roaming up and down the docks, tearing open warehouses and generally pillaging. I got Arishok's attention and handed off the book. When he asked how I came to have it, I said that I'd found the ship's captain, dead, in my office. He gave me a narrow look, but he had his prize. He didn't ask if I wanted a reward - we both knew the reward was him not leveling the city.

Not bad work, considering no one will ever believe we did it.

Captain Isabela slumbered, unconscious and lathered up with elfroot poultice, in my bed.  
Fenris, remarkably, had remained good to his word. Merrill must've held the crossbow on him long enough for him to decide he couldn't overtake me, and that the tome was lost to him. Failing that, we were his next best option.

Which meant I'd possibly signed us up to take down a notorious Antivan slaver and a powerful Tevinter magister. Oh well. Can't have everything.

Speaking of which - I hardly had time to tell Merrill that all was well, and to congratulate her on her dramatic re-enactment of Varric's deathless prose, when she shook her head and gave me a worried look. "Aveline, I've been to Arianni's," she told me. "To see if Feynriel could, you know, help the captain?" Right, yes, because one forbidden apostate per Alienage doesn't quite meet quota, apparently. "He's missing. She said that if he hadn't come back by dawn, she was going to come and find us. It could be bad. _Very_ bad."

But _that_ is another story.


End file.
